GBR 1-2 on opening day at Finn Gold Cup

The opening day of racing at the 2013 Finn Gold Cup in Tallinn, Estonia started slowly with light winds and a delayed start. After two races Andrew Mills (GBR) leads from Ed Wright (GBR) and Matt Coutts (NZL). Race wins went to Oliver Tweddell (AUS) and Jorge Zarif (BRA).

In a day of wildly changing fortunes any sort of consistency paid dividends. Andrew Mills tops the leader board with a 6, 3 to be one point ahead of Ed Wright with a 5, 5 scoreline. In third the Kiwi Coutts with a 4, 7. Winner of the first race Tweddell, could only manage a 22nd in race 2 and is fifth overall. Finn Junior world champion Zarif won race 2 but after a 44 in race 1 is 18th overall.

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Championship leader, Mills commented on his day, “There were two races in light and tricky conditions. I had bad start in the middle of the pack, and rounded the top mark about 12th so just fought back and won a few places on all the other legs to sixth, so that was a good comeback."

"The second race as similar conditions, with different bias on the line, though the right was still favoured. I had a good start and good speed and was about sixth at the top, then fourth at the bottom by playing the pressure but on the second beat the left came in better and I dropped to sixth. The last run was lighter again, and I managed to jump to third on the last reach”

Other British competitors struggled. Junior European champion, Peter McCoy is 46th after a 55 and 44, while Mark Andrews had a 56, 50 to place 52 overall.